It is thrilling to think of your room and you, wicked, inside— Adorable snake, with a snake’s unflickering eyes, And an intimate smile (to share which, fools have died) And lips soft as a girl’s and like a siren’s, wise! Devourer of youth! You are never alone by your fire, You have always a boy there, who thinks you a goddess, ill-used, And adores you with passion, and brings you the gifts you desire— And the fiercer he burns, Dear, the better he keeps you amused! _Ritz_ (_July, 1914_) White teeth, neat black moustache and lovely eyes— Face bronzed and beautiful, like a young god— Tired Rollo is the dreaming school girl’s prize. He leans against the wall, perhaps will dance If they ask very nicely: sweet young things! He’s “an observer,” and he can’t conceal He’s frightfully bored with all this sort of crowd. He prefers artists, men of genius; He has a soul above the idle rich— “A looker-on, you know, at the world’s game.” Rude persons laugh. Adonis, rather hot, Twirls the ineffable moustache and smiles. —He is so much that other men are not. 1914. _A Triumphal Ode_ _Written on the occasion of the grand MARCH PAST of British Poets and Men of Letters, which took place under the Auspices of the League of National & Civic Idiocy on VICTORY DAY, July 19th, 1919_ Of Shavian prophets, bearded, and the bleat Of infant Sitwells baying at the moon; Of abstruse Eliot, and the effete Vieux Gosse—Sing Boom! Sing Boom! See, here they come! The martial music swells; Northcliffe, beflagged, leads on, with H. G. Wells; And prancing solemnly, and prancing slow, Come Hueffer, Shorter and Sir Sidney Low! Now, there’s a murmuring as of asphodels, The while each poet mouthes his roundelay— The bards, the bards! Be still my heart, ’tis they! Here’s J. C. Squire, and here the laurell’d Shanks; There’s Ezra’s circle of performing Yanks; And here that ardent and enduring one Who, with cool madness, faced th’ opposing Hun Until—flick! Flick!—they fell down every one. And here is Lewis, blasting as he goes— He plays his one-man-band, yet keeps the pose! Here’s Secker with his owl; the Coterie; And gentle John with “gray dog Timothy”: Here’s sly Monro with Chapbook under arm And fair aspirants round him in a swarm; Here is our Centaur, with desponding lyre; And here the Wufflet with adoring sire! Now come the veterans of Victorian years— Kipling in khaki, Binyon in tears, Here Yeats, with eyes distraught, and tangled hair, Moans the lost vogue of Deirdre, in Mayfair; While aged Moore, detached, a little bored, Tells doubtful tales to Mrs. Humphry Ward.